Three Weeks Around Taiwan

Boston to Vancouver; Saturday, April 11, 2015

Today was a day of travel.

We left the house before 8am. Bob scheduled his global entry interview at 9:15am. He said he would like to be on standby for an earlier flight so we would have more time for connection in Chicago because our original flight had a very tight connection. Unfortunately we did not clear the standby even though we were #1 and 2. There was an earlier flight that was delayed so many people got on the 1pm flight to Chicago. Nobody on the standby list got on. So, we ended up spending a total of 7 hours at Logan airport :-( Our flight was at 4:05. We got to Chicago shortly after 6. It turned out our flight to Vancouver was right next door to the arriving gate. Oh well .... 

Both flights were smooth. We were upgraded to business class for the Chicago to Vancouver leg so that was nice. Arrive in Vancouver shortly after 9pm local time. Got to our hotel, Fairmont water front after 10, Boston time after 1:30am.

One thing I noticed was that there were signs in Chinese all over the airport. And on the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel, we saw many stores on the streets that had signs in Chinese. We asked the driver if we were in Chinatown, he said no. So there must be more Chinese here than in Boston. Pretty amazing.

Very nice hotel! No need to checkin - the porter already had our room keys ready and he addressed Bob as Mr. Fiske as soon as we came out of the taxi. A classy nice touch which reminded us of the Peninsula hotel in Bankok. The room is nice. Nothing fancy, but roomy and comfortable.

I started to feel some excitement of the trip!

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Sunday, April 12, 2015

Somehow could not fall asleep last night until probably 4am Boston time. It was noisy outside - there was police siren for a while, then somewhere in the hotel someone was banging something. Sigh ...

Got up before 7am local time. Got email from our dog sitter - Rosie the neighbor's GSD was loose again and followed them on the street, causing Djuna to bark and charge. The 2 big dogs were charging at each other, making it impossible for Melissa to control and she was very worried. I was very very mad at Rosie's owner - we wrote them an email before asking them to please constrain Rosie since Rosie does not listen to their command. Today I emailed them again. This is so unfair ....

We left the hotel after 9am. It was an overcast day today, with drizzling rain now and then, and quite chilly, much colder than I expected. We first went across the street to have breakfast at Starbucks. Then we walked around the Bay by the water. There we saw a sea plane taking off from the water, which caught our attention. We then walked to the terminal and bought the ticket to take a flight tour at 10:30. It was a 20-minute flight (air time). We had a good view of the bay area, the islands, then of the city. Very nice!

We continued our walk along the water after the plane tour. The walk was very nicely built. Many people were jogging and walking there - it seems that people here are quite health conscious. The air was fresh, the place was clean, an ideal place for walking or jogging! There were tall apartment buildings along the water, and parks here and there. Some people were walking their dogs. There were areas that were marked for dogs to be off leash. We saw a dog there rolling on his/her ball, as if getting a ball massage. Very funny. I thought of Djuna, missing her ....

Originally we wanted to walk around Stanley Park. But from the plane we saw how big it was and decided to skip it. We walked to the edge of park, then turned around and walked to Robson Street which our concierge told us was a good shopping street. We first visited Safeway to get a few items (bottled water, dental floss, etc). By that time it was past noon time already. We walked by a number of appealing Oriental restaurants (noodle place, dumpling place, etc). There was a Malaysian restaurant called Banana Leaf right across from Safeway. The menu looked interesting, so we decided to have lunch there. And it was a good decision. We ordered Singapore chilly crab, roti, and string beans with shrimp. All were quite good! The crab dish was very tasty, but very messy to eat, very hard work :-( We ran into a couple - the lady was from HongKong, the husband was Caucasian. The wife and I started chatting. She said the crab dish was very good. She could not eat it because her cholesterol was high. Oh oh, how about mine .... I probably should not eat it :-( Next time I won't! :-)

After lunch, we continued on Robson street. Oh my goodness! This is my food heaven!! SO MANY very interesting looking Asian restaurants! One after another! Japanese, Korean, Thai, Malaysian, of course Chinese, etc. And walking on the street, I could hear people speaking Mandarin every step of the way. Some stores had Chinese sales people and they were talking Chinese/Cantonese among themselves. Unfortunately some of them had the same attitude as I encounter in Beijing and Shanghai, very obnoxious. I would never want to buy things from that kind of store.

Bob was so nice he let me wonder into any store I wanted. I got a few things from the Canadian stores such as Roots. And we got back to the hotel around 4. I am thinking, my sister and brother in law would be so happy living here!! The lady in the restaurant told me that the Richmond area is a Chinese community where you don't need to speak English at all! And Vancouver is really a lovely place regardless of Chinese or not!

Bob took a quick nap then we left the hotel again after 5. This time we walked to the Gastown area, which was in the same general direction of Chinatown. The concierge said there were shops in that area. Yes there were some. But the area was quite different from the Robson street area, which I liked much better. There were a lot of bars and restaurants in the Gastown area. I guess it must be a pretty popular party place on the weekend nights. 

From there we walked towards Chinatown. It was very depressing for me to walk in Chinatown which was quite decrepit. On the way there, we walked through an area that seemed to be the "base camp" for the homeless people. It was a little scary. We looked into a couple of restaurants in Chinatown, but somehow thinking of eating there made my heart sink, so we decided to walk back to the Robson street area. 

It started to rain harder, no longer an off and on drizzle. We walked back to where we saw some interesting restaurants in the morning, and went into a Japanese place called "Gyoza King". A small place, but quite full. We ordered 3 kinds of dumplings, a salad, a soup, and a tuna tataki. Pretty good. No complaints. But I think my dumplings are better :-)

After dinner we walked back to the hotel in the rain - needed to walk off all that food. This time we walked along the water again and I really liked that area!

Tomorrow we will rent a car, check out of the hotel, put all luggage in the car, then drive to Whistler. Then to the airport. It's supposed to be a rainy day, so we can't really do much else.

Oh, found out why the room was that noisy last night - the window was open! Duh! Somehow the maid did not close the window! Weird! Tonight should be better!

Vancouver then Taipei; Monday, April 13, 2015

We got up around 8 to a rainy day. Packed, had breakfast (again at Starbucks), then it was about time to pick up our rental car. The concierge made a reservation for us yesterday at Budget, which was a few blocks away. We walked there. For $30 dollars more, we upgraded to a nice BMW 528. Bob drove us back to the hotel, picked up our luggage and checked out. Off we went towards Whistler.

It was raining pretty hard, much harder than yesterday. We needed an umbrella when walking. The drive to Whistler was about 2 hours. It was indeed quite a pretty drive, even in the rain and fog. All along the way, there were trees and shrubs of different shades of green - dark green from the pines/evergreens, yellowish green from the some trees that were budding, and fresh tender greens from others. The mountains were shrouded in fog and clouds. And many times we got to see the ocean/bay and islands on one side. Being a Monday, the traffic was very light, so the driving was pleasant even for Bob the driver.

We got to Whistler Village shortly after 1pm. We had no idea what this place was like and what we could do there. We went into the visitor center. The lady at one of the booths there told us it would be a good thing to do the peak to peak ride. It was COLD there! Much colder than in Vancouver. To do the peak to peak, we would be riding in the gondola so it was supposed to be less cold than outside. We paid the fee ($80+ for the 2 of us, at senior rate), then walked in the rain to the Whistler gondola through the village. Now I got a feeling of the village - it reminds me of Disney somehow :-) Store after store of sporting goods; restaurants, boutiques, a fun place!

The peak to peak ride consisted of the half-hour ride up to one of the peaks of Whistler, then another 10-minute ride across to Blackcomb. We got in the gondola - boy it was still quite cold! Very soon after we got in the gondola, the rain turned into snow, and we noticed the snow on the ground and people skiing! Gee! Somehow I did not think there would still be this much snow here! And it was wet and cold, for us the non-skiing tourists :-) The gondola made one stop before reaching the top. That was the stop where there were trails and areas especially for kids. Very nice! I kept thinking I would LOVE to bring Caleb here some day!! ....

Half an hour later we got to the top (which according to the map was not the top of Whistler. To reach the top, one will need to ski to another lift station to take another lift). We were hungry so we had lunch at the cafeteria. They actually had noodle soup! For sure it was not gourmet, but it killed the hunger and made me feel warmer. 

After lunch, our original intention was to ride to the other peak. But Bob said we would not be able to see anything because it was very foggy and the snow was still coming down. I was concerned that we would have to walk (in our sneakers) in the snow to the other gondola station. So we decided to skip the other peak and ride down to the village instead. 

We took a quick tour of the village, went into a few stores. If it were not that we were going to Taiwan, I probably would have gotten some ski/winter outfit, as they were on sale and the price was good. But we did not get anything.

We are very impressed with Whistler! It was by far the largest and best ski resort I've seen and been to! Very nice! Must be skiers heaven! There are also a lot of activities aside from skiing. I would love to come back here to spend more time some day!

We left Whistler shortly after 4pm. By the time we reached Vancouver, the rain had eased off quite a bit. We made good time - got back into the city in less than 2 hours. What were we going to do the kill the next few hours? We decided to drive around, and to Richmond, perhaps have dinner there. We drove through some nice neighborhood, and got to Richmond shortly past 6. 

Richmond is a place where there is a heavy concentration of Chinese. There were supposed to be good Chinese restaurants there. But where? Yelp does not work since I did not want to pay for cell roaming. So, when we saw a restaurant called Shanghai House Restaurant that looked decent, we decide to try our luck. Our thinking was, if the restaurant was too bad, it would not have survived. We did OK. Just ordered too much. We again had a crab dish - ginger and scallion crab which turned out fine (but again messy eating!). I was chatting with the waitress (who is from Canton). She said only 1/3 of Richmond population was Caucasian now - as more and more Chinese moved in, the "foreigners" moved away ....

We drove to the airport after dinner. Bob said our flight was t 12:05am, and the EVA airline would allow checkin 4 hours before that, so that would be around 8pm. We got to the checkin counter around 8:15 and found out the flight was actually at 2:20am! Sigh ....

Spent 2 hours sitting at a table at the food court. At 10:20pm, we checked in our luggage and came to the Plaza Lounge to spend the next 3+ hours. And here I am, connected to the wifi, doing my blog. 

The lounge here is nice, with a decent spread of Chinese food - noodles, fried rice, steamed buns, etc. etc. Unfortunately I am so stuffed so nothing interests me much. Tried one steamed bun which was so-so - well much better than a lot other lounges.

It'll be a LONG night/day ahead! I have not been sleeping too well the last 2 nights which made me nervous .... Will try to rest!

Taipei, Taiwan; Wednesday, April 15, 2015

So I skipped 4/14 for this blog - we boarded the plane before 2am on 4/14 and by the time we landed in Taipei, it was the morning of 4/15 already.

The plane was a 747, a rather small aircraft, and an older model. The plane was not full by any means. There were 3 rows of seats in the first section of the business class where we sat, and there were at least 4 empty seats. There was another section of business class seats which were largely empty.

The flight attendants were very friendly and helpful. Very nice. But the first disappointment I had was the little pouch they gave us. I was expecting the same kind Lucy showed me, but ours was just a normal soft case. Later I asked the flight attendant. She said they only give that kind on the newer models of the plane. Sigh ....

The second disappointment, which was a much more severe one, was that the seats did not lay flat! It was the old kind that I hate with a passion. The sleeping position was entirely slanted from head to feet. Ugh!! As a result, I really did not get much sleep. Tried, and slept off and on for a little bit. but that was it.

Aside from these, the flight was smooth and the service was attentive and nice! I had a nice beef soup noodles for dinner, and a porridge (with lots of little sides) for breakfast. Very satisfied.

It was a 11.5 hour flight. We landed in Taipei at 5am local time, half an hour earlier than scheduled. Leisurely, we were the first 2 off the plane. Going through immigration was very smooth. It was early, so the airport was quite empty. Our driver was already waiting for us there. And we were on the way to the hotel within an hour!

So what is my first impression of Taipei? I watched outside while riding in the car, when the day started to brighten up. The streets were quiet and there was not much traffic. The highway we were on went through areas similar to some of the rural areas near Beijing airport, but less developed, I would say. Compared to BJ, this place certainly has much less high rises and does not look as "modern". There were mountains/hills around. I did not find anything that shocked or impressed me, on the drive to the hotel.

Our room at the hotel was not ready when we arrived, as expected. Carol the travel agent Lucy has been working with actually came to the hotel to meet us! Very nice of her since it's so early! She made special arrangements for us to stay at the executive lounge on the 19th floor, so we can rest till our room is ready. So here we are now. There is wifi, we're happy. There is good food for breakfast, but we're not hungry so we did not eat much - I had some fruits. We will wander out soon, head to DingTaiFeng (the famous dim sum place) for lunch, then come back and hopefully to get into our room by then, to take a shower, before going to the museum.

We walked out of the hotel shortly after 9 - we thought we would just go to the Taipei 101 area (where DingTaiFeng is) and wait for the restaurant to open. The concierge told us it was really easy to take the metro/subway there. The metro station was a short walk from the hotel and it would take us straight to Taipei 101. 

As we walked around the hotel towards the metro station, Bob's comment was this place looked like Beijing 20 years ago. He was probably right. This area was quite old. There were many name stores such as Louis Vutton, etc. and the place was clean, just old. The metro was nice. Even though it was still the end of rush hour, people were orderly and no pushing or shoving. We got to Taipei 101. As soon as we got out of the subway station, we walked right into DingTaiFeng. Of course it was not open yet, so we wandered around that area. That area was definitely newer. It was where the world trade center was - a very strange building. There really was not much to see or do while waiting for the restaurant to open. We walked into a cafe called "1 Bite 2 Go" - apparently a newly opened one, very much a western style place. There was a bunch of people there trying to do a photo shoot of the place, running around, not sure what they wanted to do. Bob had a cup of coffee, we sat down for a while, then walked across the street to DingTaiFeng shortly before 11.

We got there just in time - the restaurant opened before 11. We were seated and I ordered a bunch of stuff. Everything was GOOD! The best were the steamed soup buns, and the few small dishes. Even Bob was very impressed. I really want to go back there again before we leave!

The place was very clean and well organized. The service was friendly and efficient. We came back to the hotel after lunch, around 12:30. Our room was ready - 1935. They already put our luggage in the room. We finally got to wash off the travel dust! And the hot shower sure felt good!

After cleaning up, we took a nap. Then we dragged ourselves up around 3:30 to head out for THE museum - got to see it and got to see that jade cabbage and the stone meat! So we took a taxi and went there. Somehow I thought there was a mini forbidden city, but I was wrong. It was just a multi-story building in Chinese tradition which was a museum. A very nice museum. Lucy told me to go late in the afternoon, after all the tour groups leave so it would not be so crowded. She was right. Even though there were still quite a few tour groups, but the crowds were not intolerable. And we did see that jade cabbage and the stone meat! Impressive! We looked at some of the jades, then I went through the gift shop, then we left. The taxi ride between our hotel and the museum was about 25 minutes. And we got a glimpse of some of the government buildings such as the department of defense, navy head quarter, etc. I was starting to get a taste of the city which has its charms, even though most parts were quite old.

We were both feeling tired. But after we got back to the hotel, we took a tour of the "Regent Gallery" which was actually down in the multi level basement. First we saw the area where we will have breakfast tomorrow (Lucy told me so much about the breakfast), which was serving a buffet dinner. SO MUCH food!! And they looked really yummy! Unfortunately neither of us had the appetite for rich food now. We then toured the stores on floors B1 and B2 - all name brand stores, and many names I never heard of before, very fancy. I wonder how they could sustain the business since there did not seem to be any customers in any of them .... I certainly cannot afford any of them.

We were not hungry and really did not want to have a big dinner, so we decided to go to the Taiwan restaurant Carol's sister suggested, "Green Leaf", which was nearby. The concierge confirmed that it was a good restaurant, so we walked there. We had to wait about 10 minutes because it was full. We ordered rice noodle soup for each of us, a vegetable dish, and a dish with shrimps, ground pork, and salted vegetables. All were very good! And the amount was just right. There were many interesting and good dishes on the menu and I wanted so much to try them! But I was being good. Hope we will go back there one more time before we leave Taiwan.

Back to the hotel by 8. I was beat! Tonight would be an early night for us. Tomorrow Lucy and Chris will get here and our tour will officially start.

Taipei Day 2; Thursday, April 16, 2015

I fell asleep last night around 9, totally exhausted. But I woke up at 3:30am this morning, wide awake :-( So I was up around 5, and Bob was up by 6. Lucy and Chris arrived and were at the Exec Lounge on our floor when Bob went there to check something. We had a happy re-union!

Bob and I went down to breakfast shortly after 6:30. Lucy had told me so much about the breakfast and I was so eager to see/try it. It was indeed very good! In terms of scale, it was not as grand as the one in ChengDu Shangrila. But every item was very nicely prepared and delicious! I tried not to eat too much (because Lucy had booked a fancy Japanese lunch). I had half a small cup of Taiwanese salt porridge, another half cup of Taiwanese rice noodles, with lots of condiments; and I had steamed little sweet potatoes, fruits, and some Japanese condiments. Enjoyed everything I had!

To walk off the food and prepare for the lunch feast, Bob and I decided to take a walk. We asked the concierge where would be a good place to take a walk. She said to turn left from the hotel, just keep walking. That was what we did. We ended up at the plaza area which hosts the National Concert Hall, the National Theater, and Chiang Kai Shek's memorial hall, with the Archway being renovated. Somehow the place reminded me of Tian An Men square, on a much much smaller scale. The ground was very nicely maintained, with symmetrical parks on both sides, and manicured lawn and flowers. We walked the circle, rested for a little bit in one of the side parks, then went into the memorial hall. I was attracted by the gift shop which showed the sign "Taiwanese Arts & Crafts". We went in and I enjoyed browsing through what they had. I got a couple of small items.

While I was shopping, we were suddenly shuffled to the side while 3 soldiers walked by. It turned out that was the time for change of guards (guards that guarded Chiang's statue on the 4th floor). They walked in a fancy ceremonial way - raising their legs, clicking their heels, clacking their guns, etc. The sales people told us to rush to the 4th floor to view the ceremony for change of the guards. We followed the crowds and rushed up the stairs, and witnessed the whole ceremony. Somehow it looked to me quite funny :-)

It was 10 minutes past 10 when the ceremony was done. We were supposed to meet Lucy and Chris at 11, so we started walking back to the hotel and got there a little before 11. We met Lucy's mom, chatted for a little bit, then the 4 of us took off for the Japanese restaurant nearby, on foot.

It was fun to walk with Chris and Lucy as they knew the place so well and pointed out the good bakeries and other interesting stuff. We did not know the Seven Eleven here was so different from the US! They sell ready cooked hot food there! One can definitely live on the food they sell - delicious and cheap!

Lucy made the lunch reservation for noon. Lucy got to know the owner and chef of the restaurant through one of her friends. I honestly do not know how to describe the food we had, except saying that it was the BEST Japanese food I ever had! I have never been a fish lover. But today we had at least 10+ kinds of raw fresh fish, and I enjoyed ALL of them! We had a raw lobster - not the Maine lobster, but the spiny kind. The chef went to get this bigger lobster this morning for us. It was live and moving. We watched the chef kill it and pull its head and body apart. Then he used a hand torch to slightly grill the body before pulling the meat out and sliced it. When he cut it, the meat was still moving .... I really had to close my eyes .... Too cruel :-( My first time eating raw lobster meat. It was so good! Sweet, crunchy, unbelievable!! I tried to take a photo for each course, but am not sure if all came out well - my little Sony RX100 does not seem to do a good job with macros.

I can't even list how many kinds of fish we had. I really liked everything we had! None was fishy at all! By the time we finished lunch, it was shortly after 3. Each of us was happily stuffed beyond description.

Coming back to the hotel, I was hitting a wall and would have loved to take a nap. But in order to adjust to the time change, I did not. After drinking a cup of coffee at the lounge, the 4 of us headed out again shortly after 4. This time we were going to meet Carol the travel agent in her office, to pay our bill. We took a taxi there. Carol and her secretary met with us, went through the entire itinerary with us (mainly with Lucy), and we paid our bill.

After meeting with Carol, we walked from her office to the Sogo area, where Lucy showed us the shopping malls there and various things of interest. Believe it or not, we even stuffed ourselves with some famous and delicious fried chicken nuggets! (Bob did not try but I did, even though I was so full). By the time we took a taxi back to the hotel, it was past 8pm. None of us had room in our stomach for any food. We went to the lounge. Chris went back to the room for bed. Bob and Lucy had a drink, I had a few pieces of fruit. We chatted a little, then called it a night.

A nice day! Tomorrow we will leave Taipei at 9am.

Yilan, Taiwan; Friday, April 17, 2015

We left Taipei this morning at 9am, heading to Yilan city which was on the east coast of Taiwan. We had a Volswagan van and our driver was Mr. Chen. All our luggage fit nicely in the van, and the 4 of us sat comfortably.

Yilan was not that far away, especially through the Snow Mountain Tunnel (which was about 7+ miles long, being the 5th longest tunnel in the world). It was only a hour or so. Before the tunnel was built, it took a lot longer. Once we left Taipei, the scenery was quite different. We saw much less crowded buildings, lush mountains, and rice fields.

Our first stop was at a high-end B&B by the ocean, called Sealuv Homestay (www.sealuv.com.tw). The owner used to work as a stock broker. Then he bought the ocean side property, built a Greek style B&B, with 4 suites. Very nice! He showed us around. First he took us up the mountain where we watched people hand gliding off the mountain down to the sandy beach. Later we went with him to the black sand beach in front of his B&B. We walked into the water. The sands were very hot, and it felt wonderful to go into the ocean water - the water was clean and refreshing. After that, we went to his restaurant and had a 9-course lunch. It was an unbelievable lunch! Mainly seafood, raw and cooked. 5 appetizers and 4 main courses. We were more than stuffed. We ran into a young couple from Beijing who were just leaving. A nice polite young couple.

After lunch, we went to a national cultural center for arts in Yilan. We had to pay to go in. And inside there was a main street full of shops. There were some old residences there, some temples, etc.It was similar to the places I've been to in ChengDu. 

We then drove to a publishing company. An editor there, Ms. Zhang, was the one that helped us booking the B&B for tonight which was impossible to book without the connection. We met the owner of the publishing company, chatted with them, and learned a lot about the food and the places we visited or will visit. Their business model was quite interesting and I still am not sure how they could make $ .... They had a very nice kitchen there, with all the modern facilities. The owner told us that they would organize events like workshops, where they invite locally known chefs to cook together with people who signed up/paid for the event. The owner actually moved his publishing house from Taipei to this place. He bought the property, renovated it. They get local organic vegetables, etc. They served us some fresh cherry tomatoes which they picked that morning. They were absolutely heavenly. SO sweet! I've never had tomato that good! I would have eaten the whole bowl if I let myself :-)

It was past 5 when we left the publishing company. Next stop was the B&B for us tonight. It was a Japanese style high-end B&B. It is called 大渔日和 in Chinese, English is "Taiori". It was on a very crowded narrow street. From the outside, one would never have guessed how nice it was inside. The two couples of us each had a big suite which consisted of a bedroom, a kitchen, a sitting room, and a bathroom that had a hot tub and a shower. Ours was on the first floor and we had an extra room that had the Japanese style sitting area - with Tatami. Very nice!

Dinner was at 7. Again, lots of nice fish. I took a bite of everything but certainly did not stuff myself (i was not hungry to start with). Bob was not feeling well with his stomach - probably ate too much for lunch, plus being tired. So he did not eat.

I did not sleep well last night and it has been a busy day tonight. Will take my shower and call it a night now.

Yilan Day 2; Saturday, April 18, 2015

Bob was very sick last night - did not eat anything and threw up everything he had during the day. The last time he threw up was around 2am.

I woke up a few times during the night after we went to bed after 10pm. First time in my life, we actually used the bath tub in the room! The hot spring water of Yilan is well known and the hot water used in the hot tub was spring water. It felt good to soak our tired muscles.

I woke up a few times during the night (once was by the phone ring on my iPhone.Hateful! Someone from Woburn was trying to call me. Damn it!), and got up around before 6. I downloaded the pictures of the last couple of days, wrote my blog, etc. while waiting for breakfast at 8:30. Lucy called asking if I would like to join them for a walk to the nearby market. I did. And enjoyed the sight of the morning market. Saw many good fruits and breakfast stuff, but did not dare to buy any - no room in the stomach for anything :-(

Breakfast at the B&B was wonderful! Nicely prepared porridge with a number of small dishes - scrambled eggs with spring union, home made pickled cucumber, peanuts, vegetable, and fermented bean curd (home made). Of course there was a fried fish dish which was very fresh and nice. Bob ate only a few bites of porridge, and drank some canned juice. Chris let him take a couple of Zantac pills which helped him quite a bit throughout the day.

We left the house around 9:50. I was never clear exactly where we were going. I only knew we would be picking fresh vegetables from the fields/farm, then cooked with the local people. It turned out this was one of the events the publishing company organized. We were among a total of 12 people who joined this event. It was kind of an event to promote organic farming and food. We first went to somebody's house and listened to the wife how they do organic farming. Then we went to the field where there were tomato, eggplant, and other vegetables and listened to an old farmer about how he persisted in organic farming. After that, we went to a store that had local organic products and books which the local people can trade in their books for food. Interesting. Finally we went to an elementary school and started the cooking process. School was out as it was Saturday today. The principal of the school was one of the organizers of the event. A very nice man. It was a hot day today and I was very glad we finally came inside where it was cool and comfortable. We ended up not picking anything from the field - everything was there already. There were people related to the school there helping to cook the lunch. I did not participate in the cooking, as I did not see where I could help.

Lunch consisted of rice, fish ball soup, 2 kinds of vegetable, scrambled eggs with chopped up dried turnip, a dish with bamboo shoots, and braised pork, etc. I was happy with the homy lunch. Poor Bob had some rice with home made soy sauce. But he kept both lunch and breakfast down!

The last thing of the event was to make a local food, sticky rice ball stuffed with either sweet bean paste or stir fried pork and shredded turnip. That was a big production. First the sticky rice flour had to be kneaded a certain way. Then they needed to be made into donut shape and steamed. After they're steamed, they needed to be mixed with peanut oil and stirred. Then it was time to make the balls (of course the stuffing had to be cooked and prepared first). Everybody put on sanitary gloves to participate. It was interesting. I made a couple of tiny ones to taste - they were pretty good! But there was no way we could have eaten even one - it would fill us for a whole day! Lucy and I made 6 - 3 sweet and 3 salty. We were supposed to each bring back a box of them. We took back one box which we would give to our driver.

We left the event before 4 and came to the B&B called Sunday Home where we would stay tonight. This was yet another very impressive B&B. It was constructed like a French Chateau. Once you come in, you would not feel you're in Taiwan, more like a foreign place. But the house itself was in the middle of rice fields, like many B&Bs here. A very interesting and strange phenomena ....

Talking with our driver who was a Yilan native, we learned a bit about Yilan. Yilan is only an hour's drive from Taipei and has become an ideal place for Taipei people to escape the city life. Yilan is beautiful, with its underground spring water, its closeness to the mountains and to the ocean, its fresh seafood, etc. Many rich people built their weekend/vacation homes here which is why we saw so many grand looking/mansion like homes here. And there are thousands of B&Bs here - seemed like people bought a piece of rice fields from the farmer and built the fancy houses. But now the government has issued a rule - no more houses can be built for business use here. Even though Yilan has made a lot of money from the "immigrants", its farming economy has suffered. When a house is erected in the middle of a rice field, it blocks the sun from part of the rice crop. Rice needs full sun, so the part that is blocked by the sun would end up having empty rice shells. And the quality of the rice suffers. Also these houses would need underground plumbing for their wastes, which also affect the rice. The street lights they put in also affect the rice growth - rice needs sun but also needs darkness at night to "rest". It's been a very difficult situation.

Our room/suite was on the first floor. It was quite nice! We were pleased. After I unpacked the necessities, Bob lied down on the bed to rest, while I took a walk with Lucy and Chris in the neighborhood. It was really an interesting place that I have not found way to describe it. This was the countryside and there were rice paddies all over. But there were very modern buildings, and fancy buildings all over, straight out of the rice fields. Chris called them Taj Mahals. Also, even though the place was not neat, it was relatively clean and not smelly at all! This was quite different from the countryside in China that I've seen, where it's usually dirty and smelly.

Tonight's dinner was at a teppanyaki place in Luodong, a small town in Yilan township. This restaurant was very famous and it was very difficult to get a reservation. Ms. Zhang helped us to get the reservation, so even though we did not feel like having another fancy heavy meal, we felt obliged to go. And we were very glad we did. Because of Ms. Zhang, the owner and main chef Mr. Chen cooked for us. He knew we wanted quality and not quantity, And it was an absolutely a fantastic meal! Every dish was superb. Best of all, everything was cooked! Unfortunately Bob did not go - there was no way he could stomach such a heavy meal. He stayed in the B&B and had a simple supper.

Back to the B&B around 10. Tomorrow we will be taking the train from Luodong to Hualian city around noon. We won't leave the B&B until 10:30am so we can sleep in a bit. Breakfast will be 8:30 though.

Taroko, Taiwan; Sunday, April 19, 2015

Even though we had the time to sleep late today, I still woke up a few times during the night and got up before 6 :-( Somehow I just could not sleep well ....

The room was comfortable, with AC on all the time. Once we stepped outside, we were engulfed by humidity. Bob and I were going to take a walk, but gave up that idea because the humidity was quite unbearable. The only bad thing about this place was the mosquitos - I got bitten multiple places :-(

Breakfast was at 8:30. Oh what a lovely spread of yummy food! Two kinds of vegetable, home made pickled cucumber, home made fermented bean curd, little fish (the local specialty, the tiny tiny kind of white fish), duck breast, and scrambled eggs. Fresh soy bean milk, porridge, garlic toast, and finished with fresh fruit - yellow water melon and pineapple. Very good! Last was coffee. The host Mr. Lin made good coffee with beautiful leaf pattern on the milk. 

This B&B has been in business 7 years. Very well maintained. Their kitchen was a professional one, stainless and spotless clean. Mr. Lin used to be a software engineer at a local company. A smart guy. His wife was the chef. I saw a photo with them during their young days, very nice! They have a daughter and a son who is in college now.

The train from LuoDong to Hualien was at 11:45. Before we went there, Lucy wanted to get some famous scallion cookies in town so we went there. Of course I got a few packages also. We got to the train station half an hour early. The train station was nice and clean, not very crowded. Lucy showed me the famous bento lunch boxes at the train station - cheap and delicious. It was about $2 USD per box. Unbelieveable!

It was a new train so the ride was very pleasant. Only about less than an hour. We got to Hualien, our driver was waiting for us there, Mr. Luo (as in Luo Tuo, camel). Lucy wanted to try some of the local food, so we first had wonton soup, then some sticky rice ball filled with meat. Then we had a fried bread filled with curry meat, then we had some soft bean curd soup. Finally, when the driver took us to a famous beach area (next to the military airport), I had a bite of the meat sausage wrapped in sticky rice sausage.

Then we drove towards the hotel, Silks Place Taroko - i think it's actually inside the Taroko National Park. Our driver is a tour guide plus driver. He explained to us the stories and history of the mountains. Really gorgeous scenes! The mountains were part of the central mountain range that ran through the middle of Taiwan north to south. They are famous for marble rocks and other precious stones. There was no danger of mud slide here because the mountains were rocks. But falling rocks were a real danger. Mr. Luo let us walk a couple of trails to enjoy the beautiful scenery before we got to the hotel before 5. We each has a room on the executive floor (3rd) facing the mountains. We agreed to have the Chinese dinner (vs the western style dinner the travel agent booked for us) at 5:30. And that's when I started feeling sick ....

Somethings that we ate during the day did not agree with me - I started having chills, running bowl, and throw-up. Of course I did not have dinner. The waiting staff kindly brought me porridge and pickles but I really could not eat. So we did not go to the show after dinner and I came back to the room and lied down on the sofa for a while before I dragged myself up to wash and went to bed. It was a horrible night. Around midnight, I threw up a lot of stuff that was in my stomach and I felt slightly better after that. The nausea and running bowl continued even though there was nothing left in my system ....

Oh, forgot to mention, this Silks Place Taroko hotel was the most expensive place we stayed on this trip - it's about 17,000 Taiwan dollar per night, close to $600 USD. Our room was absolutely fantastic! Very spacious, with everything you could think of, plus you get the gorgeous mountain view from the window and when you step out on the balcony. Wish I were not sick to enjoy it more!!

Taitung, Taiwan; Monday, April 20, 2015

No breakfast for me today as I was still feeling terrible. Mr. Tuo our driver/guide picked us up at 9am and off we went.

First he stopped at a few scenic places in the Taroko National Park for us to look around and take photos. After we left the park, the driver stopped at a lemonade place which is supposed to make the best lemonade. Unfortunately I could not take anything. Chris had one and he said it was very good. Next stop was to have the local famous soft bean curd soup. Of course, I could not. But Bob had one and he said it was better than the ones we had yesterday.

Around noon time, we stopped at a restaurant in a little town for lunch. Local dishes - mountain chicken, wild boar, bamboo shoots, etc. I could only watch - my stomach could not take anything, lucky I did not throw up ....

After lunch, we continued our drive to our hotel. On the way, we visited a few other places. One was a nice area where there were 6 or 7 huge mansion like B&Bs. It was owned originally by people in the garden design area. Later it was sold to different people who built B&Bs. The whole place was like a golf course. I did not feel like being in Asia when walking there. Another one was an old Japanese village during the time of Japanese invasion (1895-1945). Japanese took a lot of wood from Taiwan. This village was a factory sort of place to make wooden things. Unfortunately it was closed on Monday, so we could only walk around without going into any of the exhibits. Another place we stopped was a cow farm. Cows were not native to Taiwan - either the Dutch or the Spaniards brought them in. This cow farm was well known for its milk products - milk bread, candies, etc. It was funny to see the many cows together with 2 ostriches.

The hotel was actually in the town called ChiShang which is famous for its rice. We stopped at a place that sells bento boxes. Lucy and Chris each had one - they looked DELICIOUS!! I would have LOVED to have one! Of all the food we've had, this was the one I wanted most! :-) The place provide stir fried turnip and soup. Gee!! I could just have rice and the fried turnip!!

The last place we visited before we came to the hotel was a place made famous by an EVA airline commercial "I see you". It was a big spread of rice fields, and there was a tree where the actor (in the commercial) sat underneath sipping tea. So that tree and the place became famous! And it was indeed a beautiful sight! The spring green rice fields are like an ocean. The mountains around were gorgeous! We rented a 4-person electric bike which Chris drove. It was wonderful touring the rice ocean, with the breeze! Really enjoyed it.

Our hotel, the Papago International Resort was close by. We arrived there around 5:30. This was a nice place! The room was spacious and clean. The resort has all kinds of activities. Looking out of our big sliding door or standing on the balcony, we could see the mountains, and the rice fields nearby.

Dinner was included. I was able to eat some - hooray!! Hopefully tomorrow I will be better. We're staying here 2 nights (for a change) and I'm very happy for that. 

Oh, there was a 6.3 earthquake this morning, right in Hualien area! But we did not feel a thing! Strange! From the news, we saw some other places were badly affected by it.

Taitung Day 2; Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Last night I took a bath - it was the second time in my life that I took a bath in a hotel. It was because I was told the water here was hot spring water, and I was tired (being sick for a day). So I sanitized the tub and took the plunge. It felt good.

The bed was comfortable. Bob and I each had a king+ size bed, nice comforter covered with duvet cover. I was happy. I probably fell asleep before midnight, but again woke up around 3:30. Could not fall back asleep, read a little, then drifted off for a bit. Up at 6 to a hazy morning which later changed into rain.

Another thing good about this resort was there was a self laundry place on our floor so I was able to wash all our dirty laundries, last night and this morning. Breakfast started at 7. We went down around 7. Lucy and Chris were there also. Nice breakfast. Not fancy, but all good local food. After breakfast, Bob and I took a walk around the hotel in the rain (with umbrella). Then our drive came to pick us up at 10 to start our tour today.

Our first stop today was at a aboriginal museum sort of place on top of a mountain on the ocean mountain range side. It was quite high up there. Our driver had never been there before so he had to count on the local people on the phone to guide him up. When we got up there, there were already a few other groups of people there. The program included walking up a narrow trail in the jungle, which we skipped; and then lunch, followed by planting a tree, then a group sing/hum. I really was not too interested in this sort of thing, but the lunch was good tasting - lots of local vegetables, all cooked on wood burning fire, without artificial additives. And after lunch, they demonstrated and made the local dessert, which was sticky rice and millets steamed then pounded into gluey dough, then rolled in sugar like powder (which we did not taste). There was quite a crowd there - supposedly one group consisted of professors from QingHua university (in Taiwan, not BJ). 

We escaped the crowd and were the first vehicle down the mountain (phew!). Next stop was at a place in a village where there produced the kind of special coffee. The coffee fruits were first eaten by wild civets who were not able to digest the coffee beans and would poop them out whole. But their digestive system somehow took certain things out of the coffee beans so the coffee was very clean tasting without after taste. The young guy there showed us the animal (very cute), the raw poop, and the picture of how they cleaned the beans up, etc. etc. He also cooked the coffee for us. Lucy and Chris LOVEd it and it was their second time buying it ($250 USD/pound). Bob did not like it at all, and I certainly could not tell too much the difference. They also sold small bottles of oil made of the secretion from the male civets anus. The oil could cure bad headache, muscle ache, etc. I was very tempted to buy that, but decided against it.

Next stop was at a high spot on the mountain where the hot balloon festival took place very year (not this time). There was also a "grass sledding" slope where people would sit on a piece of something to slide down the hill, just like we do snow sledding back at home. It was a rainy day so the activity was not on.

Next stop was near the grass sledding place where they had fresh pure fruit ice bars (popsicles). It was self serve, purely based on honor system. There were different flavors - Bob and I had the passion fruit ones. They were good. If I was not feeling 100% in my stomach, I would have had 2.

Our last activity of the day was dinner at a special place. This was the home of a chef who used to work in Taipei, but chose to leave and came to the countryside to have more time with family and close to nature. He was quite a unique chef. The food he made was fusion, the best way I could describe it. We were first served 2 local vegetables with special light sauce. Then an egg cake dish similar to Japanese style. Then a few small fried local fish. Then an onion soup (similar to French union soup but without the cheese), followed by 3 kinds of rice - white, flavored, and risotto. The rice was DELICIOUS - all made from local ChiShang rice. The best part was the local hand made soy sauce and melted lard with fried onion in it. Heavenly! We had to select our main course ahead of time - 3 choices: duck confit, beef stew, and fish. I ordered beef stew, Bob ordered duck confit. And we all shared. The duck confit was the best. And we were all stuffed. The dessert was home made madelin which was decent.

After dinner, Chef/owner came to meet and talk with us. He talked in great details about how to make good rice. And he talked about why he came to the place, and his ideas about family and life. I liked him and would have liked to listen to him more. But it was getting late and I was very tired and sleepy. Our driver had to drive 3 hours to get home (it was the end of his duty with us), so we left around 9. A long dinner.

I was not feeling great in my stomach. Too much food, even though I was being careful. Tomorrow we will leave around noon heading to GaoXong on the train. 

Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Wednesday, April 22, 2015

We woke up around 6 to another overcast day - could not even see the mountains out of our window. But there was no rain and the temperature felt comfortable, even though quite humid.

My stomach was not feeling great, so even though we went to have breakfast, I only had some water melon. For rest of the morning, I wrote my blog for yesterday, downloaded photos from my camera, took a walk in the hotel's property with Bob, and just rested. Took more Zantac that Chris gave me and felt a little better by noon time. We ordered bento box lunches from that famous place nearby, and I had some of mine.

Our train to Kaohsiung was at 12:58pm. The hotel's shuttle took us there. ChiShang was a little place and the train station was small and simple, with no elevators or anything. It was a struggle for us to drag all our luggage up the stairs. The hotel's driver helped us - very kind of him. And Chris also helped and that was very nice of him.

The train came on time and we were off at 12:58. By the way, the trains here are very punctual. And you really need to quickly get on/off or else you would miss it. The train ride was a little more than 4 hours and we arrived in KaoShiung at 4:20. The train station here was bigger as KS was a rather big city. There was an elevator which was very much appreciated. Once outside the station, the hotel's shuttle was there to take us to the hotel. Very polite, friendly and helpful porter/driver.

The hotel we were staying at was called Chateau de Chine. It was a nice hotel. Not that fancy, but nice. Lucy had requested executive floor rooms which were on the 7th and 8th floor. We first got 2 rooms on the 8th, but one of them was very smokey. So we had to change and chose to upgrade to the larger room (what they called family room) which had 2 queen size beds (vs 2 twins). The room was not big, but adequate. We were very happy with the upgrade.

Our plan was to go to the night market for dinner. But the night market we intended to go was closed on Wednesdays. So we went to another one that was planned for tomorrow. It was interesting to walk through the night market street here. So many food stands with all sorts of food! Sea food was a major thing here. Very interesting. Lucy and Chris had a number of small bites. Bob and I had some noodles with minced meat, etc.I finally bought the fruit that Xiaolin told me about - the kind that looks like the budha's head. I had it after coming back to the hotel - very good!

Had one incident that really impressed me: we hired a taxi from the hotel to the night market. After Bob got out of the taxi, he said he probably lost his phone. And he confirmed that he indeed lost his phone after we came back to the hotel. We then went down to the lobby and spoke with the porter who got us the taxi, asking him if he could check with the taxi driver. 5 minutes later, he called our room and told us the phone was found! The taxi driver tried to call using the phone but it was on airplane mode. We were very very impressed!!! Don't think we would have had this kind of luck in the US or anywhere else in the world. The people here are really nice!!

Kaohsiung Day 2; Thursday, April 23, 2015

Hey, last night was the first night that I did not wake up around 3:30am! I woke up past 5! Wow, very happy about that :-)

I got up shortly after 6 and Bob was up around 7, and we went down to breakfast and met Lucy and Chris. Nice Chinese breakfast - nothing fancy but everything nice. Bob and I liked this hotel very much. It was not a huge hotel and there were not groups and groups of tourists. The breakfast place was not huge but big enough to not feel crowded. My stomach was still feeling funny (I continued to take the Zantac Chris gave me), so I tried not to eat too much.

There was a self laundry place on the 10th floor so I did a small load. Lucy helped me to set all the buttons on the washing machine, which was quite different from what I was used to in the US. 

We left the hotel at 10am. We had a new driver, Mr. Xie, who had a big VW van for us. The van could comfortably seat 8 people. Both Lucy and I could stand in the van with ample room on top. Very nice! This was Lucy's request and the travel agent accommodated us :-)

Our first stop today was a ocean front place they called The Windmill beach. It turned out the few windmills were tiny, but the ocean front area was built very nicely! There were areas for people to fly kites and apparently people are known to do that at the place. We took a short walk there, then went to the nearby famous seafood market - it was a market selling various dried seafood. You would know it as soon as you got close to the open doors. There were SO MANY different kinds of dried seafood!! I would have loved to buy many of them if I lived here! It's such a shame that we could not bring them back to the US .... Finally I got some non-fish stuff - wasabi peanuts, black sesame cookies, and a few dried scallop - I was told it is allowed to bring dried seafood into the US.

Walking further down from the market, was an "old street" that was lined with mainly seafood restaurants. Fresh seafood was displayed, and the open kitchens were right behind. We walked down one side, up the other, and down again to one specific restaurant where Lucy had taken her mom there once and liked it. She ordered a few dishes including shrimp, clams, fresh bamboo, and eel. Everything was very tasty, especially the little clams. The sauce was so delicious! If it were for just bob and me, I probably would not have stepped into that restaurant. But apparently it was a good one, just looking at the many locals eating there. Bob and I ate a small lunch. Then we walked back through the market and back to our car. Oh, we ran into a few Americans from the Oceania cruise on Insignia! It was part of the world cruise. They were walking through the seafood market. But we doubt they would buy anything there ....

Next stop was a factory that made and sold the mullet fish roe which was like the Asian caviar. I had a taste and liked it, so I bought 1 small pack (Lucy got 4). Lucy taught me how to prepare it - I will definitely try after I get home! These were Taiwan mullet fish roe. There were others that were actually shipped from the US, then made and packaged in Taiwan. How interesting!

Next stop was the old British Consulate which was not a museum. It was on the hill/mountain overlooking the bay. Gorgeous view! We had to climb quite some steep steps, but the view was worth it. The museum was done well, with some neat sculptures outside. We took pictures.

Next stop was at an art district similar to the "769" (or something like that) in Beijing. We walked along the paths they built and looked at the various sculptures lining up the walk. We poked into the few shops and enjoyed looking at the interesting (and expensive, not very useful) gadgets. It was by the harbor and we could see the Oceania ship docked there. Since today was a week day, the place was not too crowded so it was pleasant. But I was getting very tired. We decided to head back to the hotel, to rest a few minutes, then head to the night market.

After coming back to the room, I really felt too tired to go out again so we bailed out on Lucy and Chris. But I hope they actually would enjoy a better time without us tagging along and not eating anything. As much as I would like to, my stomach simply couldn't deal with eating like that. And I really don't want to be sick again.

Bob and I went to the 3rd floor of the hotel and had dim sum dinner in their Cantonese restaurant. I had my porridge, and we had the normal items we usually had for dim sum. The food was good, but not great. Our stomach felt more comfortable though.

Relaxed in the room after dinner. Had water melon in the exec lounge on the 7th floor - this was the water melon we bought around Hualien and carried all the way here :-) It was just OK.

Tomorrow we will be leaving at 9am heading to TaiNan.

Tainan, Taiwan; Friday, April 24, 2015

Today we had a guide in addition to the driver. They came at 9 and we drove towards Tainan. It was about one hour or so, not very far.

Our guide was a short lady, experienced, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic. Our first stop was the ChiMei museum. It was a museum built by a local businessman who grew up poor in Tainan. He loved to visit the free museums when he was growing up. He vowed to himself that he would become a billionaire one day and he would build a museum for people of all ages. And he did. He now owns one of the largest ABS (?) manufacture companies. He built this museum entirely using his own money, then donated it to the government, while providing $2billion per year for its maintenance. The museum opened in January of this year. It's very hard to get tickets which was probably why our travel agent did not schedule the visit for us. We drove by there, got out of our van and toured the outside for about half an hour. WOW! It was a magnificent sight! My first thought was it was like Versailles!! And he indeed got permission from Versailles to build the fountain in front of the exact same. Very impressive! Our guide told us the museum was meant for people from young to old. It had a section for animals (stuffed), and various sections of real art work from all over the world. The owner used 10% of his company's profit every year to purchase art work. Pretty amazing!

Our guide told us quite a bit of TaiNan's history. I did not know that TaiNan was the capital for many many years and was a city full of historical interests. Our tour today did prove that.

TaiNan was well known for its wetlands - supposedly well known in the world. Our next stop was a boat tour of a channel among the mangroves. It was a boat full of tourists and the mangroves were not that impressive, compared to what we saw in the Everglades. The tour guide of the boat ride was a good one so it was pleasant to listen to her. And there were many little crabs on the shore which was interesting to look at. I did not particularly care for the ride - it was very hot!

After the boat ride, our guide took us to a place up the hill which was an ancient battle ground between the Dutch and local people.

We then drove to another part of the city that had interesting streets. I think that was part of the AnPing area. We walked a little bit, then stopped at a well known street food place to have lunch. Our guide made her recommendations. Bob and I each had some rice noodles, and some famous local shrimp rolls which were quite good. Shrimp stuff seemed to be a big thing here.

After lunch, we followed our guide and walked many interesting small alleys of AnPing. She showed us many interesting old buildings including the place that was called the house of the Dutch Princess. She told us stories of the lion emblem (I bought a small souvenir of it). 

Then we visited a fort where the famous Chinese hero in history, Zheng ChengGong, fought the Dutch. I learned more about Zheng than I learned at school. Quite an admirable guy! After that, we visited the "tree house". That was a very impressive place!! The old Banyan trees there took over the storage houses of a merchant years ago. I think it was more impressive than the jungle temple in Cambodia!

It was hot and sticky. Thankfully we stopped and had some cold soft bean curd soup and ice. That was refreshing. And we continued with our tour after that. For the rest of the afternoon, we visited another fort like place; a former residence of a famous calligrapher, and the Confucius Temple, and walked the old streets of a famous area which reminded me of TianZiFang in Shanghai. Then we went to have dinner around 6. We had the famous local dish, a mountain chicken cooked roasted in clay oven which was very tasty.

Got to our hotel around 8. Very nice hotel, the same Silks Place chain as the one on Taroko, but I think it's nicer. Unfortunately the room first assigned to us was smokey (this was a non smoking hotel but some people obvious violates the rule). They gave us another room which was again smokey. Finally they found us another room that's clean. So here we are, in room 1214. All is good. And I'm ready to crash! Tomorrow we will meet the driver and guide at 9.

What did I really enjoy today? 1. The banyan tree house; 2. The ChiMei museum (even though just the outside); 3. The streets in AnPing town and the streets similar to TianZiFang. Glad we did the historical spots, but that was like work for me :-).

Tainan Day 2; Saturday, April 25, 2015

We left the hotel at 9am to start our second day's tour of Tainan. Our agenda today was to first visit the salt mountain and museum, then later in the afternoon visit the National History Museum. I was glad that it would not be as agenda jammed and rushed day as yesterday.

The salt "mountain" and museum turned out to be an amusement park kind of place, built on the old salt producing place. Taiwan no longer produced salt now - it now imports salt from Australia. The original salt mountain was still there. Some parts are no longer white because of years of dust, but most parts were still white. The original salt "fields" were still there. We visited the various parts of the salt place, took the little train from the amusement park part of the place to the museum, and learned more than I ever knew about salt making. It was educational.

The salt place was in the suburbs. By the time we finished touring the salt museum, it was noon time. We went to a local restaurant for lunch. It was an OK lunch which included a fish cooked in salt crust. I really could not get too excited about these lunches, but they're edible.

After lunch, we drove to the National History Museum. It was a nicely organized museum and had some parts especially targeted for children, including a cartoon animated movie giving an overview of Taiwan's history. I was very tired, and really could not do the stop-and-go kind of tour well. I tried to sit down and rest everywhere I could. This museum was not crowded at all. It was very crowded when it was first built, our guide told us. Now since there is the new ChiMei museum, this one seemed to have attracted much less attention.

It was mid afternoon when we finished visiting the history museum. Our next stop was an old Japanese department store in the city, which was the fanciest department store in the 1930s. Now it still sells things but is more of a museum. Before we went there, we first stopped at a well known dry fruit place to get some dried fruits which Chris liked. Of course I got some also. 

The department store had 6 stories. We took the old elevator up and walked down each floor. There were some designers arts and crafts stuff there, some food, etc. I got one interesting set of salt and pepper shakers plus creamer and sugar dish, etc.

The next agenda was dinner but it was early. So our guide took us to walk the famous street that was lined up with shops and stands - my favorite kind of place. We quickly walked through the street and then went to dinner.

Dinner was at a famous place known for its DanZi noodles which turned out to be quite good! We finished dinner before 6:30 and headed back to the hotel. We said goodbye to our guide. Tomorrow we will leave TaiNan and head to the Sun and Moon Lake area. The same driver will take us there. We need to leave at 9am.

Nantou, Taiwan; Sunday, April 26, 2015

Another pickup and go morning - we left our hotel in Tainan at 9am this morning, our driver started towards the Sun Moon Lake which would be a couple of hours drive to the north.

We sat in the comfortable big van and enjoyed the ride. Our driver brought a young girl who would be practicing driving the tourist van on their way back. That girl was in college and she wanted to become a tour driver (or so I understood). Taiwan has very strict rules for tourist drivers especially for the size of our van. We chatted about that. Chris also introduced me to the well known Chinese documentary series called "A Bite of China" and I watched one episode on his laptop. FANTASTIC!! I must download the whole thing and watch!!

Our first stop was after about 2 hours drive, at a place that used to be a Japanese village/community that farmed (stole) Chinese forest/wood. Now it was kind of a market place with all kinds of stores. There was an exhibit of the old wood manufacturing site. There were Japanese wooden houses, etc. Today there was a spring plum festival there - vendors were selling various plum food. We walked around the place for a bit.

Next stop was at a small town where our tour agent suggested that we had lunch at a restaurant that made fruit based dishes. It took our driver some time to find that place. We went in. Lucy looked at the menu and decided that we would not have a big lunch there. On the way to the restaurant, we walked through the town center which was a street full of local foods. The most appealing one was a steamed bun filled with braised pork and other yummy condiments. We were all drooling for it. So we went back there. Bob and I shared 3 of them happily. Yummy! I also tried to shop for owl souvenirs, but did not find any that would thrill me. There were some I liked, but the price was too high. Owls were lucky symbols here.

After lunch, we continued towards our hotel which was about 20 minutes away. Nice hotel! We got rooms on the 9th floor, facing the lake. Views were very beautiful! Talking about the lake, the Sun Moon Lake consisted of 2 lakes - the sun lake and the moon lake. The lake we're facing was the moon lake. But aside from the beautiful lake/mountain scenes, I could not see any "moon" about this lake. Maybe tomorrow our guide would be able to tell us more.

After settling into our rooms, we met again at 3:30 to take a walk up the mountain from the hotel, to the temple nearby. The temple was called Wen Wu Temple (Culture and Military?). We climbed all the way up the 3-tired temple and had a little exercise.

Dinner was at 6. Chinese food. We enjoyed it, even though the dish "buddha jumps over wall" was rather disappointing, everything else was good. The buffet dinner place tonight was having a roasted pig. We walked by after dinner and each had a piece of skin - so yummy!! The chef was very nice! If I had room in my stomach, I would have a few pieces!!

We took a stroll on the roof top restaurant. It was too dark to see the view around. Tomorrow we will try having a drink there during sunset.

It was a day of leisure. I will take a bath in the spring water tub in the room (instead of going to the spa where they have nuke spring water bath, or swimming pool with spring water).

Nantou Day 2; Monday, April 27, 2015

We got up around 6. I did not sleep too well probably because of eating too much last night and went to bed with a full stomach. I woke up a few times. At around 5, I got up and took a few pictures of the lake/mountains from our balcony. Everything was very quiet and I could hear the birds chirping. Very tranquil.

After breakfast, we took a walk with Chris and Lucy by the lake near our hotel. Our driver/guide came at 10 to start our tour today. Our driver was a local man who lived very close to the hotel. He owned an Italian restaurant specializing in pasta. Quite interesting. He used to be a chef of Taiwan cuisine. His family has been for more than 4 generations. He's very familiar with everything around here.

Oh, first of all a couple of corrections: the Sun Moon Lake is ONE lake, not two! And the part of the lake by our hotel is the Sun lake, not the Moon. Looking at the map of the lake, I could not figure out for the life of me why it's called Sun Moon Lake - the lake must be very different when they first named it. Now even if you had much stronger imagination than I do, you'd have a hard time seeing moon and sun anywhere in the shape of the lake.

Today we toured miscellaneous places around. Aside from stopping at a few spots by the lake, we took a quick tour of the XiangShan place, which was like a museum of some sort. It was designed (and built?) by a Japanese. The shape was rather unique. We also stopped at an old tea factory, a farmer's market sort of place where Lucy and I each got some preserved turnips which smelt good. The town (or big village) we went to was called PuLi. We toured a liquor factory and later a paper making factory (which had some DIY activity Lucy was interested but it took too long so we did not do it). We had lunch at a nice family operated restaurant in PuLi. It was a vegetarian restaurant, with Italian style food, with some Indian flavor. Quite good. The place was nice and clean so lunch was enjoyable. The driver also took us to a modern buddhist temple which was quite impressive.

We came back to the hotel around 3:30 to take a break. Dinner was at 6 in a nearby small restaurant at the "old street". We went to the old street shortly after 5 and wondered around for a bit. I got a couple of souvenirs (oh boy! How am I going to carry all the stuff back?!!:-(). 

The restaurant apparently was a very popular one. It was very crowded even before 6. Somehow our travel agent's reservation for us was not received so they would not seat us - the service there was awful, the waitress' attitude was like that of a mainland Chinese restaurant. I would have turned around and left - no good food was worth that kind of aggravation. But Lucy called the travel agent and they seated us. The food was fine, tasty. We were done by 7 and our driver brought us back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we'll leave at 9am. Last pack-and-go before the final one in Taipei for going home!!

Back to Taipei;Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Our driver and guide came at 9am and we took off for Taipei. The car was a big VW high top van, even more comfortable than the previous one. Our guide spoke English - he spent 3 years in LA for some computer HW business. Interesting guy who rode his bike (with a bunch of other people) from Taipei all the way to Beijing, 30 days round trip!

Our first stop was an art museum which was part of the Asian University (the only remaining private university in Taiwan) in TaiZhong. It was a museum made of triangle structures. There was an exhibition of Degas' work going on. We bought our tickets and enjoyed the exhibits and the building.

It was about noon time after we visited the museum and we went to have lunch at a very unique restaurant that our travel agent arranged for us. It was a library and a restaurant with 5 tables. Lunch was reservation only (not sure if it served dinner). The dishes were absolutely DELICIOUS!! The first dish was Shanghai style smoked/cured fish which was SO GOOD! Then we had freshly cured mustard green with minced pork, fresh eggplant with basil, cured bacon with garlic, asparagus with ham, followed by clam soup in chicken stock. Everything was just delightfully delicious. There 2 women chefs with 1 waitress, serving a very small audience. Quite an interesting business model which I supposed was quite popular in Taiwan.

After lunch, our guide took us to see a place called Gong Yuan Yian Ke (Gong Yuan Ophthalmologist) - it was built by the Japanese in 1927 and now is a fancy store for all sorts of desserts, chocolates, etc. It was similar to that department store in Tainan, but done better, I think.

Our last stop in TaiZhong was a famous factory store that sells the Sun Cakes (among other cakes). We each bought a box and a few loose ones that had meat or egg fillings which we would not be able to bring back to the US.

The drive from TaiZhong to Taipei would take 1.5 to 2 hours depending on traffic. We were lucky to not have run into bad traffic. Our next stop on the way to Taipei was a ceramic place where people could sign up to learn making pottery. It turned out to be a very beautiful and tranquil place in the countryside. We enjoyed climbing up to all the places and looked around, taking photos. If we lived here, I would definitely want to take lessons!

After getting into Taipei, we stopped at a very famous store to get the pineapple cookies. We were not sure how long the lines would be or if we would be able to get the cookies today, but we were lucky. The line was not too long and we were able to get the cookies!

We got to the hotel before 6. After getting the rooms and putting our luggage in the room, we left at 6:30 for the night market. Lucy planned that we would have dinner at the night market and also get me suitcases that I needed to carry all the stuff back to the US. Bob and I were not crazy about eating at the night market, but we went along. Had some delicious pan fried dumplings, then had some bone soup (sitting next to a trash can), then had some desserts which I liked. I got my 2 pieces of suitcases. All accomplished!

Tomorrow will be our last day of tour together. Lucy and Chris will take off for the airport on the 29th (heading to Singapore). Bob and I will take off for home on the 30th.

2nd Time in Taipei, Day 2; Wednesday, April 29, 2015

We met our driver and guide at 9am today - same driver as yesterday but a different guide. This guide was an old-ish man who had been in the business for 40+ years, a very experienced but sort of "jaded". He had been all over the world including the north pole, Africa, etc. And he spent a number of years in the US. His daughter is in the US and he owns property on the west coast. He spoke English so that was good for Bob.

Our first stop was a small town where one of the natives (Atayal) lived. We visited a museum of theirs. Then we drove by a small waterfall nearby. It was interesting that very soon after we drove out of Taipei, we were in the lush mountains. After that we drove to an old street in another small town which was famous for its bean curd. Lucy wanted to have a specific kind of "smelly bean curd". We found the restaurant and had our lunch. Bob and I did not have the bean curd, but we had some nice fried rice and bamboo shoots which I loved. We toured the old street before and after lunch. The street was lined up with restaurants and eating places, with a few stores selling non-food stuff.

In the afternoon, we drove to another town famous for the ceramic products. Lucy had been telling me about it and I was really looking forward to it! I did see quite a few things I'd love to get but could not because there was no way to carry them back. I got a couple of small things though.

That was our last stop before we came back to the hotel before 5pm. Lucy had made reservation for a "banquet" tonight at a good restaurant. Her daughter, Amanda, joined us. The 5 of us had a delicious dinner. The restaurant was within easy walking distance from the hotel, so we walked around a bit after dinner. This place really came alive at night, whereas during the morning, it was pretty dead - nothing seemed open before noon.

Originally Lucy helped me to book a tour of a well known "old street" an hour or so north of Taipei on 5/1 since our flight was at midnight and we had nothing planned during the day. But it turned out that 5/1 is a holiday here so that old street would be crowded beyond description. Lucy helped me to change the tour to tomorrow and I'm grateful. We paid $4800NTD for it, 8 hours. and we'll leave at 10am tomorrow. Lucy and Chris will checkout here and go to the airport hotel tomorrow so we'll say goodbye to them tomorrow morning.

2nd Time in Taipei, Day 3; Thursday, April 30, 2015

Said goodbye to Lucy and Amanda before 10am (Chris was at the gym), and we left with our driver at 10 heading towards the well known KiuFen old street, which was about 1+ hour's drive away. Our driver was Mr. Guo, a nice man.

Mr. Guo first took us to a cat village which was on the way to JiuFen. The story of the cat village was that a lot of the abandoned cats were rescued by the village people there and provided food and care for them. Now it's become a tourists attraction. The village was by a train station in the mountain area and it was an old coal mining village. We walked around and saw quite a number of cats sleeping, sitting, walking, all very relaxed and did not pay any attention to the tourists taking pictures of them or petting them. 

Not too far after the cat village, we arrived at the JiuFen old street. I am SO VERY thankful that we changed the tour from tomorrow to today - it would be a zoo there tomorrow and would have definitely ruined any fun we may have. It was not too crowded today, but the narrow street was already hard to walk, with a few buses of tourists. The stores mostly were food stores selling local goodies. There were a few stores for other stuff, but they're not that different from the stuff i've seen in XiuShuiJie in BJ. We followed the advice Lucy gave and walked to the top of the street up the mountain, had a cup of the sweet rice ball stuff, and looked at the scenery. Then we decided to have some lunch and we walked into a place that had a nice dining area on the 3rd floor. We sat by the window, overlooking the pretty scenery. We ordered their signature fried rice, a vegetable, and chicken. All were good enough so we were happy. Also chatted with the owner whose wife was from GuangXi.

After lunch we continued our walk on the street. I ended up buying myself a wooden stamp and I was pleased with it. The wife of the stamp maker told us a short cut to walk out of the old street and we met our driver at 3 and continued our tour.

Next stop was the Gold Museum. That area used to be a gold mine. We toured the 4 joined houses that used to be the residence of the Japanese officials. Then we went to see the big chunk of pure gold which was the treasure of that museum. That piece of gold weighed 200kg, worth about $8.4 million USD. It was covered in a transparent plastic box which had 2 holes that you can put your hand through to touch it. 

Next stop was the gold waterfall nearby. It was a small waterfall, but very pretty! The reason it was called gold waterfall was because of the minerals had made the rock bronze color, so the water falls on it and looks gold.

Our driver then drove along the ocean side road, stopped at a couple of places to let us enjoy the oceanside scenery before heading back to Taipei. Once in Taipei, he showed us the president's office building and his residence. Then he showed us the art museum and the grand hotel which were not too far from our hotel, which we could walk to tomorrow. We're very grateful for that!

Back to the hotel before 7. Quite pleased with today's tour!

Our trip is coming to the end - we will need to pack up our luggage and check out of the hotel by 11am tomorrow. But our flight is at midnight and we will not leave the hotel until 8pm. We will need to store our luggage at the hotel then kill the afternoon one way or another. I really want to go home!! ....

Vancouver Again; Friday, May 1, 2015

It is 10:30am Taiwan time on Friday 4/30. We've been up since around 7, had breakfast and went out to get a luggage strap (somehow I lost one of mine). We need to check out of the hotel at noon, and we don't get picked up for the airport until 8pm for our midnight flight. It's in the 80s outside, quite humid. It'll be a long day to kill ....

We plan to walk to the Taipei Art Museum after checking out, not a short walk but manageable. There must be AC inside the museum so that might be a good place to kill a few hours. No other plans aside from strolling the street and poking into shops. We already have 4 pieces of checkins, absolutely no room for more stuff.

So what is my impression of Taiwan? I'm trying to summarize in no specific order:

- Most people we met - on the street, in hotels, in restaurants, etc. - were friendly and polite. It made traveling more pleasant. Compared to mainland China, there's a night and day difference .... Also, the people here seemed to be more honest. We were extremely impressed and grateful that Bob left his cellphone on the taxi and was able to find it a few hours later. Don't think such things are likely to happen in the US.

- Compared to the big cities on the mainland China, such as BJ, Shanghai, the big cities here (Taipei, Kaoluong) seemed a lot older. And it did not feel the kind of booming economy like it did in China. But the streets are clean - very few littering and did not see people spitting. Funny thing was it was very difficult to find a trashcan. Many times we held our empty water bottles and other small trash for a long time and finally had to ask some shop keepers to throw them away.

- The food here indeed lived up to its reputation! All sorts of XiaoChi, and all sorts of restaurants. I wish I had a stronger stomach, or multiple stomachs to satisfy my own desire to try all the goodies! The night markets had many appealing food offerings. But the couple of times we sat down with the Nee's, we really did not appreciate the environment - if it were not with them, Bob and I definitely would not have sat down to eat. The various "old streets" did not seem to offer as much variety of stuff (aside from food) as the markets I visited in China. Lucky that we came with friends this time so we got to see so many places and taste so much good food!

- Taiwan is really a treasure island! The landscape is beautiful, with lush and cloud shrouded mountains and water. The agriculture here seems quite advanced. I was told Taiwan pays a lot of attention to its agriculture. Maybe because of its climate, Taiwan has such a rich variety of fruits and vegetable. I would love to come here and live for a few months, staying at a few places a couple of weeks each, to really taste the local stuff.

- Japanese influence is very very strong here. From food, to life style, to culture, very Japanese. I feel a bit funny about this .... I know Taiwan was a Japanese colony for 50 years, but .... Thinking about the horrific crimes the Japanese committed in China, it is somehow difficult for me to see us Chinese adopt so much Japanese stuff .... But, to be fair, Taiwan has maintained much more, and better, Chinese traditions than the mainland!

I would like to come back here to see more of the scenery and old places. But it's unlikely we will be back soon - too many other places in the world which we have not been to that we would like visit.

We checked out of the hotel at noon. To kill the next 8 hours, we first walked to the Art museum probably 1.5 miles away. It was a modern museum that had exhibits by various contemporary artists. Some exhibits had Bob and me very puzzled, really could not understand them at all! The building was nice and it had AC and was not crowded, so it was a pleasant visit. There was an Expo Park nearby but we did not go in. We walked back to the hotel area and went to DingTaiFeng (again) for our late lunch/early dinner. I over ordered as usual, but we enjoyed everything. Around 4pm, we came back to the hotel and rested in the sitting area near the breakfast restaurant for a couple of hours. We then changed into long pants in the locker rooms at the gym. Our driver (with a BIG nice van) came at 8pm to pick us up for the airport.

Spent a few hours in the lounge at the airport. Our flight was slightly delayed but the flight was only 10.5 hours. Unfortunately with the uncomfortable slanted seat, I was not able to sleep much. But I watched 3 movies - Big Eyes, Return (Chinese movie), and another one that escaped my mind right now. Enjoyable movies.

Arrived in Vancouver around 8:30pm local time (would be 11:30am Taiwan time). Got to the hotel before 10. Quite a difference in temperature - about 60 degrees here (compared to the 85 in Taipei plus humidity). A pleasant change for us!

Ran into an interesting porter at the hotel, Brent Antonson, and chatted with him for a while when he delivered our luggage to our room. He's a world traveler - been to 46 countries already. He taught English in China for 2 years, also in Irag and Russia. He's taken the trans Siberian train from China to Russia. Very interesting! He has written books. I must go on Amazon to get a copy!

Almost home! Can't wait!!

Home! Saturday, May 2, 2015

Up before 7am. Had breakfast in the hotel then took the hotel shuttle at 9:10 to the airport. Flight was at 11:55 but it was delayed a little and we took off after 12pm. We had to change flight in San Francisco, then to Boston. Touched down at Logan before 1am. Home around 2:45am Sunday, 5/3 via an AVIS rental car.

Finally home!